August 25, 2017

Street Fair Unites Cornellians After Inauguration

After the formalities of the inaugural ceremony of Martha Pollack, attendees of the event and other Cornellians streamed into a celebratory Street Fair held on the Arts Quad.

Surrounded by balloons, streamers and tents, the fair featured various Cornell departments and performance groups, in addition to sights such as a miniature horse, birds of prey, racecars, fencing displays and live music.

Katie Sims/Sun Staff Photographer

CALS Students scoop up Martha’s Bits and Bytes at the Street Fair — a special inaugural flavor by Cornell Dairy.

Cornell-based and local food vendors were also a main attraction, with many attendees seen carrying kettle corn and other snacks. An especially popular feature of the fair was the debut of an inaugural ice cream flavor, “Martha’s Bits & Bytes” ice cream — a banana and vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, chosen by Pollack herself.

One vendor, Charles Coristine MBA ’12, owner of the LesserEvil snack brand, described his experiences attending the inauguration and then handing out bags of organic popcorn as part of the festivities.

“I thought the speech was really good … I was touched by the whole thing,” he said. “And then we came here, and it’s been nonstop … I’ve probably given out three and a half thousand bags of popcorn.”

Michael Wenye Li / Sun Assistant Photography Edito

President Pollack joins the festivities at the fair, taking selfies with community members.

Though performances and ice cream drew large crowds to the area, another feature of the festivities was an emphasis on sustainability.

Cornell EcoReps stood by to ensure that wastes were placed in the correct containers to promote sustainability on campus. Kimberly Barth Anderson ’06, sustainability and engagement manager, noted the positive feedback of this effort.

“All of the recycling, composting and landfill guidelines that we are following here represent the same waste sorting practices that we have on campus year round, so this event is helping to instill mindful waste-sorting on campus,” she said.

At a moment where the community was drawn together in celebration, Chenab Khakh ’20, an EcoRep, said she appreciated the opportunity the inauguration provided to meet people from varying backgrounds.

Katie Sims/Sun Staff Photographer

Hortus Forum members hand out plants, highlighting aspects of sustainability.

“I enjoy interacting with several different types of people, especially since we’re at the inauguration,” she said. “We have so many adults, we have students, we have families, we have people from many different colleges and universities as well, so for them to see Cornell’s initiative on sustainability, we hope to inspire others as well off campus.”

Yalverton Luckain, director of finance at the Center for Technology Licensing, also highlighted this unifying opportunity, allowing vendors and organizers of the fair to highlight new initiatives at Cornell.

“There’s quite a few different vendors, different departments, so it’s actually very interesting,” Luckain said. “There are things that I never saw on campus before. It’s a great opportunity to see what Cornell is doing in terms of all the different technologies and stuff that they have.”

Related

“They were brought to this country before they had a choice in the matter, have grown up here, and are succeeding here despite significant challenges and obstacles,” Pollack wrote. “I believe they deserve a chance to fulfill their dreams, and this action has the potential to extinguish those dreams.”